University of Gottingen | Institute for Astrophysics | 2019 Jun 18
International research team discovers two new Earth-like planets near Teegarden's star
An international research team led by the University of Göttingen has discovered two new Earth-like planets near one of our closest neighboring stars. "Teegarden’s star" is only about 12.5 light years away from Earth and is one of the smallest known stars. It is only about 2,700 °C warm and about ten times lighter than the Sun. Although it is so close to us, the star wasn’t discovered until 2003. ...
Their data clearly show the existence of two planets. "The two planets resemble the inner planets of our solar system," explains lead author Mathias Zechmeister ... "They are only slightly heavier than Earth and are located in the so-called habitable zone, where water can be present in liquid form.”
The astronomers suspect that the two planets could be part of a larger system. "Many stars are apparently surrounded by systems with several planets," explains co-author Professor Stefan Dreizler ... Teegarden's star is the smallest star where researchers have so far been able to measure the weight of a planet directly. "This is a great success for the Carmenes project, which was specifically designed to search for planets around the lightest stars," says Professor Ansgar Reiners ...
The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs. Two temperate
Earth-mass planet candidates around Teegarden's Star ~ M. Zechmeister et al
- Astronomy & Astrophysics (accepted 14 May 2019) DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201935460
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1906.07196 > 17 Jun 2019